Brothers: A Study of Bonds
by Natsumi Wakabe
Summary: A look into moments between siblings and what it means to be bound by blood and/or spirit. Rating may go up later.
1. Prologue: What's in a Bond?

_Disclaimer: Wakabe Writing Firm doesn't own Lord of the Rings_

_A/N: I've always been fascinated by the relationships of family, have always longed to delve deep inside, and see how individual ones work, how they survive tragedy and cruelty. Being a child with brothers and sisters, both of blood and bond, I have never wondered about the basic principles that govern most sibling bonds: connection of blood or heart, unintentional hurts and wrongs, and trials and triumphs. But isn't there more? This is my way of exploring what it is to be and have a brother, a sister, someone who helps and hurts with the same hand._

_The main characters will be Faramir and Boromir, but also others, such as Eowyn and Eomer, Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen, and others._

_I hope you enjoy the journey I will be taking.-Natsumi Wakabe(Writer, Wakabe Writing Firm)_

* * *

Brothers and sister share a bond, regardless of age, distance or time. Each are given roles early in life, and expected to become something to each other according to the rules of their society, and the expectations of parents, who while aware that the picture perfect family is an illusion, still wish for things in their children and what is between them.

Brothers are expected to protect their sisters, to be examples of all things good and manly, giving love and safety in a world that will be cruel. Sisters are expected to give respect and admiration, to provide him with a reason to continue on and keep the belief that there is some good left in the world.

Big brothers, they say, are born first to take the burden of continuing the line of their family from their younger siblings. They are born first to protect those that follow, to guide them through the hardships of life and help them avoid the pitfalls and trappings that they have gone through themselves. They are supposed to do everything in their power to keep them from harm. And if they fail, they are supposed to be a safe haven for them, their arms a fortress to keep the rest of the world away, at least for a while.

They are told that the bond that they have is supposed to be special, something that no one can get between. Something that they are stuck with forever. Something holy and cherished. They are told that this is a connection that will never be severed, not broken no matter what comes. They are told that they are supposed to not hurt one another, and to always treat each other well, and with all the love and tenderness that is supposed to be so basic in a family.

But that's not always what happens.

Many a time, they hurt each other. Often, words are spoken in anger, the heat of passion fueling hatred and bitterness so much that it is often taken out on those we deem safest to do so to: not strangers who will not care or will turn us in, but to those who love us and will not leave us. And siblings will use this against each other, bringing up past hurts to justify actions against them, to use as a way to deny them or hurt them worse. Often, relationships are twisted and distorted, seeing things that aren't there, creating a kind of fragmented view of what bound one to the other. And images of who the other was were often even more fragmented and twisted, able to make them the savior and hero, or the demon and villain. They can be the cause of our misery or the reason for smiles. It fits needs, to see each other like this, but sometimes, in the quiet moments, the bond forces back the layers of time and the shadings of perceptions, it is revealed.

Moments of a brief peace in times of war, when fathers don't understand what it is that a son does for them that a brother sees and knows and tries to explain to a man that is deaf to the pain of his second born because of the glories of the first.

Moments of grief before departure, where a sister is forced to stand aside and let her brother be banished by a man who raised them as his own, never knowing if they will be reunited again as madness and sickness possess the land and kill its king, sharing in that moment the closeness that might never again be.

Moments of silence, sitting around a fire, weary and tired, but knowing that neither can stop, not while foul creatures that destroyed their own family still roam the world, ready to take from them the last of their loved ones, burning with an identical fury and darkness that will take the innocent love of a child to cure.

And in those fragile moments lost to time and tragedy, triumphs and immortal moments, there is something more precious than all of those. There is a truth to them that cannot be denied, even if the bond fails the test of time. Because those truths, however brief they may appear, are passed up and down, between siblings, through the ages, bypassing race, age, time, and culture.

Because walking alone isn't really an option when, even if only in your mind, they are standing there, waiting, always there even if only in a memory.

And maybe, that's what it is to be a sibling.

Or maybe, it's something more.


	2. Eowyn, Eomer: Secrets

_Disclaimer: see prologue_

_A/N: Miss Natsumi would like to dedicate this to Mr. D, the frustrating asshat of a brother that she can't help but love, even when he's at his worst.-Michiko (Witch Secretary, Wakabe Writing Firm)_

_PS- Nanowrimo is still on, so please excuse how slowly we update._

_Child of the Wind: I can't say that I know how long this journey will be, nor if it will ever end. But so long as I'm on it, I'll keep writing. Thank you for joining, and hope you enjoy the storms to come. There will be many._

* * *

When Eowyn was two, Eomer told her his first secret. She was just about to fall asleep when he had come in her room, silently closing the door behind him. She had drifted toward wakefulness at his arrival, the desire to play coming forth to battle against the lure of rest and sleep. He shushed her as she made quiet noises, small hands that were still so much bigger than hers running through her short, baby soft curls of gold. She murmured, content, a small smile of peace slowly making its way across her face.

When she was almost asleep again, when the pull of soft darkness was strong enough to take her under even if he whispered confessions to her, Eomer gave his sister the first secret to be shared between them.

"Mama's sick." He paused, going still for a moment, which prompted a moan of protest from his sister. He forced his hand back to activity, stroking her head and running over her face in light and gentle touches normally not seen in one who had just begun his training. "I'm scared she's going to disappear, like Lady Marian did."

The tone of his voice would have worried her extremely had she been more awake. As it was, she felt its beginnings stir inside her, gently touching her heart. It made her reach out to her brother, her tiny, chubby little hand outstretched to give comfort in gently run over his cheeks. the same gesture of love and affection that their mother had done so many times before.

But she is almost in the world of dreams and all she else she can offer to her protector, her playmate, her teacher, is a kiss to the hand and fingers that still ran over her, lulling her further into sleep. She could hang onto the living world no longer, and fell asleep to the whispered confession of fear and helplessness of a boy that she had always thought of as strong and wonderful, even when they wounded each other.

When she woke up, she found herself alone after her nap. She can barely recall the visit, though a part of her still clings to the hurt and fear that Eomer had whispered to her.

She says nothing of it, doesn't mention it when Eomer comes in with their father to play with her. But if she clung to him a bit, if her eyes would watch him a bit more closely than she had before, that was because she loved her brother.

* * *

The second secret Eomer tells her, Eowyn accidentally tells. But this is not something she's ashamed of. Male pride be damned, an injury is not something to be ignored, no matter how severe or blood it isn't.

He still doesn't speak to her for a good week. In the end, he only forgave her because by the end of that week, she'd cried herself to sleep because of the harsh words he'd yelled at her, their first real blow up in their young age. It hurt more because of that fact, and made him feel bad afterwards, though he still tried to hold out longer. A part of him was still angry, hurt that she had tattled, but if he remembered it, he is glad for it. It taught him his first lesson about wounds: they need to be tended to. So by the end of the week, during which he was lectured again and again about how as an older brother he must be more mature and responsible and stop being so childish, he forgives her. By the second week, life had returned to normal, and Eowyn smiled brighter than before.

* * *

Year pass, tragedies come, and suddenly, they are both young adults in Medulselde. An ailing uncle and king had taken up most of Eowyn's time and the increasing danger of orcs and wild men kept Eomer from their new home. They've shared secrets and sorrows during that time, but could not find much to celebrate beyond the victory of waking up everyday alive, and hoping the other was still able to draw breath, wherever they were.

And in the midst of these hard times, when Eowyn can find little to smile about beyond the return of her brother, in pieces or whole but always so wonderfully alive, Eomer would give another confession.

"I'm so tired."

It is whispered in the dead of night, when he was returned from patrol because of poison and wounds, a fever ravaging his body to the point where Eowyn abandoned her uncle to ensure her brother's life. Those words are filled with pain and defeat, so unlike her brother. They make her fingers clench painfully hard at the wet cloth in her hands. Her eyes mist over for a moment before she breathed in calmness she cannot feel and tends to him.

When he recovered, they never spoke of what was said. But if Eowyn made sure to tend to him when she could upon his return, that was just her duty as his sister.

* * *

The last confession is hers. It is in the gentle caress to his cheek. It is whispered in her old eyes that speak of a sadness and resignation of the inevitable. It is written in the smile she gives him as she returns home after a lifetime of children, a loving husband, and happiness never dreamt of during their turbulent youth.

It is a confession of a truth he wants to deny but can't.

So if he sat by her side for all the night... if he cried silently, tears falling unmarked down his face withered and lined with age... if he whispered to her in the language of their kin and hearts... no one can say anything about it but his sister, and she won't say a word, not anymore.

* * *

_Secrets. We have them, we keep them, but sometimes we give them away. What makes secrets with siblings special?_


	3. Faramir, Boromir: Jealousy

_Disclaimer: see prologue_

_A/N: Jealousy is so very ugly at times, but it is something that Natsumi is very familiar with, especially where Mr. D and Miss Sachi are concerned. And even the best sibling relationship has this emotion. So here's one look at it.-Gabrielle (Avian Secretary, Wakabe Writing Firm)_

_Child of Wind: I hope it continues as well. And hopefully after some really cute moment soon, so I can write a fluffy moment between siblings._

_DarylDixon'sgirl1985: I have to agree with you- it is part of a mark of siblinghood, to share life, even if it's ending. Goodness knows I want my family with me when I go._

* * *

The night is dark, the moon too new, too dark, too shadowed to be of any help to any wandering child or prowling guard. But that hardly matters here, in the darkened halls of home, where every step is more familiar to him than his own mind on nights like this. Nights when the he feels a cold hand upon his neck, feels ice breathing on his face, and a sensation that is unnerving in the way that the beating of a drum in a certain pace and tempo is somehow off from a way it should be that he does not remember, but feels deep in his bones.

But here, here in the dark and the silence and the calm of a city made from white stone, carved into a cliff, the only home he has ever known, when he is escaping from his room, a place that should be safe, in a broken home lacking a mother's touch, here-

Here is where he finds his refuge. Not amongst the large library deep within white walls. Not hidden in the forests that he trains in with his brothers in arms.

No, here is a room that is forbidden to him, a suite that was closed off shortly after his birth, which he has no conscious memories of being in.

Though no one lives here anymore, maids still come in once a week, cleaning everything, dusting any dust that would dare to disturb the once warm room of Lady Finduilas, wife of the Steward Denethor. Not even his father came here, instead burying himself in his work, the seeing orb that he wasn't supposed to know about, and the safety of his people instead of letting himself truly mourn and release the pain of the loss of a woman he loved more than he had ever loved anyone else.

No, this is something that only he does.

And a part of him cannot help but relinquish in the fact that this is his only. That not even his _brother_ comes here- but perhaps the possible reason behind that is different.

Faramir, after all, never knew their mother. He has no memories of her, can't say what she was like, the way she smiled, or speak of how her eyes twinkled with the gentle fire that kindled love and light for too brief a time. Faramir doesn't remember the gentle kisses she had trailed along his fingers, the way that she had held him in her bed, fingers wandering his little form as she sought to memorize the babe she had been gifted with. Faramir can't say that he has seen his mother fuss over his hair, a comb in one hand and his head cradled in the other as she tended to him.

No, Faramir can't say he knows any of this like his brother can.

Not like Boromir. Boromir, who had six years with his- no, _their_ mother, who knew her smiles and eyes that were filled with a quiet fire that was passed down to Faramir. Boromir, who knew that their mother would always dress in her blue gown once a month, which made their father smile and pause when he first saw her in it- a story behind it that neither know, but know is special between their parents. Boromir, who was given the gift of knowing the way their mother would smile so softly when she came to wake him up. He had years with him that Faramir did not, and in this alone, this one thing, Faramir hates his brother for having this one thing that he does not. (And it makes him sick to his stomach some days when he thinks too long on it, but he can't help it. He can't.)

He hated that there was something that Faramir would never, ever have any hope of getting- a relationship with his mother. And maybe that was why he came here. Maybe he was trying to make up for the lack of a female parent, one that did not frown upon every single thing he did. Maybe he was there because it was the only safe place that his father would never go, and thus was a place where Faramir was free of the tyrannical hold of his father's scorn. Or maybe, it was because even if he would never remember, would never know in his conscious mind the woman that he would have called mother, he was still connected to those four walls and that small bed, the vanity in the corner and the balcony that she would have stood on, looking out in the city.

But regardless of the reason on why he is here, beyond the empty place that he has never not known to be there, he is here, waiting. Waiting for what he does not know. All he knows is that when he is here, in the silence of the room, a calm comes over him, brushing off tension from his shoulders and soothing the jumbled mess that is his mind on nights when he seeks sanctuary and deepening his breathing until he forgets how it is that he always ends up back in his room, when the last he remembers is the scent of lilies and a silent lullaby of gentle vibrations and eyes of the sea's blue.

* * *

And what he never knows that even though he is the only one now to seek the refuge of Lady Finduilas' rooms, he is not the only one who ever did find safety in this room. And he doesn't know that though his father has never journeyed back to this room that does not mean that he is the only one to visit. And now, this other visitor usually comes only to care for the little brother who still finds safety and comfort in the unoccupied rooms.

So when Boromir comes in later, eyes drawn to the bed by instinct where his mother spent the last days she had, he does not smile. Because as endearing it is to see his brother lying there, so peaceful and calm and innocent and free in a way that he never is in the waking world, there is still a pain inside, of knowing that this will be the only time he ever sees that bed occupied again, and not with the one it was originally intended for.

So as he takes his brother from the bed and back to his room, aware of the growing limbs and building muscles that declare his baby brother's transition, he can't help but be envious of Faramir. After all, Faramir was lucky; he never knew what it was to watch the woman that gave birth to him wither away and drown in despair, taking the light from their father.

And maybe, maybe it's better that way.

* * *

_Jealousy isn't always about what the other has. Sometimes, it's about what the other doesn't have. And maybe, maybe the lack of knowing what is lost is just as powerful as the knowledge of knowing of what was lost._


End file.
